


sunny skies

by stormwarnings



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Character Study, Introspection, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, boys being soft, jean getting the family he deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23978365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormwarnings/pseuds/stormwarnings
Summary: Jean Moreau is going to graduate tomorrow, and he isn’t sure how he feels about it.(or, Jean ruminates on what the Trojans have given him.)
Relationships: Jeremy Knox/Jean Moreau
Comments: 9
Kudos: 59





	sunny skies

**Author's Note:**

> hello, i promise im working on the other story i just really wanted to write something that was sort of poetical so this happened. also i listened to ghosts that we knew by mumford and sons the entire time i wrote this, and it is such a song for them, listen to it and tell me it isnt perfect

Jean Moreau looks at the jersey in his hands.

It is red and gold. It says _USC._ It has a _7_ on the back, which is not the same as the number that is on Jean’s face.

Jean Moreau is going to graduate tomorrow, and he isn’t sure how he feels about it.

See, once upon a time there was a boy in a Nest, and his life was not his own. The number on his jersey was not his own, and neither was the number on his face. And that boy, broken and shattered and torn apart, determined something. The night before he graduated, he would die. It was a lovely plan for a boy who had never had a choice in what he was doing with his life. It was a lovely choice for a boy who had never had another plan.

And yet here he is. The night before his graduation.

And Jean is not going to die.

It is almost enough for him to panic, but he uses the breathing techniques that his therapist has given him, and he focuses on the feeling of the jersey in his hands, and he doesn’t.

It is a marvel, really.

When he first came here, to sunny USC, with it’s sunny skies and sunny captain, this jersey was a trap. It was just another place, just another team, just another unfamiliar environment. And for a little while, that was all it was.

Jean remembers the first few months with the Trojans. He could barely stand their incessant chatter, and yet he was incapable of going anywhere alone. He remembers berating one of them, a backliner named Jack, for shoddy defense. Jeremy found him curled up in a corner of the court after practice, terrified of retribution for the angry words.

Jeremy, all tanned skin and blonde hair and freckles like constellations, looked at him, and held out an arm. Jean stared at it. A captain’s arm. Captain’s arms had only ever meant pain _._ But Jeremy Knox was not Riko Moriyama, and when he held out his arm, it was to help him stand. It was to pull him to his feet, and say _we will never hurt you._ And then he’d laughed, and said, _besides, you were right._

Jean remembers when the Trojans had tried to throw him a birthday party, the night before his first game with the team. It had been a disaster, a catastrophe really, all loud noise and conversation and jokes he didn’t understand. But then Alvarez had looked at him, and said, _I am going to give you a hug._

And despite Jean’s significant height advantage, despite the darkness he wore like a shroud, she folded him into her arms. Jean stood stiffly, unsure of what to do, because feelings like this, like safety and warmth, were not to be acknowledged or they would be taken away.

And then Jeremy handed him a spoon for his cake, and Jean asked, _why a spoon?_

And Jeremy and Laila and a striker named Madison chorused, _because it hurts more!_

And Jean looked around, and everyone was smiling. And in the midst of it all was Jeremy Knox, the dazzling sun, all of them orbiting him like brilliantly shining stars. And Jeremy Knox stood next to Jean, and for a moment he appreciated it. Being caught in that celestial trajectory. That feeling of wonder.

He waited for hours after, to get hit. When he finally fell asleep, he woke screaming. And there was Jeremy, with a glass of water and kind words and a light in his hand to keep away the dark.

They won their first game. Jean recognized what everyone else in the exy world did – the Trojans may not be as technically good as the Ravens, but their teamwork overpowers anything else. And when Jean scored a goal from behind the half-court line, a power shot that he was forced to practice over and over in the Nest, Alvarez screamed, _you glorious bastard_ and hugged him again. And Jeremy was smiling, and everyone was smiling, and Jean thought about how smiles were a weapon of destruction in the Nest.

Jean holds the jersey in his hands, and thinks about how smiles are no longer that. Now, they are freely given.

Because after those first months, after his first fall season with the Trojans and their first game against the Ravens, things got better.

Laila gave him a playlist. He didn’t even ask, she just sent it to him one day. It was quiet music, calm music, and she’d said, _I get anxious. It’s not the same thing, really, but it still helps._ Jean hadn’t known how to respond, but he listened to the entire six hours all the same.

Love, Jean had learned, could be quiet.

Alvarez kept giving him hugs. It took him a long time to get used to it, that she hugged and laughed and kissed, that she showed emotion so strongly and cried so unabashedly. No one had ever taken it away from her, used it against her. It was innocence of a certain kind, but when a reporter snidely asked Jean if he thought that Riko deserved a memorial, Alvarez had snarled at him.

Love, Jean had learned, could be fierce.

And Jeremy. Jeremy, who was there every night, warding away the demons. The first time Jean punched him in the throes of a nightmare, Jeremy had worn the bruise for two weeks, and Jean had refused to look at it. And Jeremy had said, _no, no, this one was my fault,_ and looked at Jean with so much kindness overflowing from his heart that Jean almost couldn’t stand it. Jeremy had never tried to grab him again, only waited, calling his name, reminding Jean who he was.

Jean, around December of that year, stopped being able to encapsulate all of the sheer brightness and light that was Jeremy Knox’s love for everything. Everything, which, surprisingly, included Jean.

He had taken Jean home over winter break, to the tiny beach town where he grew up. Jean wasn’t even surprised by it, by the cracked sidewalks and old surfboards and sun-bleached hair of his entire family. It was the exact kind of place that Jean expected to produce a person like Jeremy. It was sunny skies, and bright lights, and hope.

_Because_ , Jeremy had said idly to Jean, _there is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for._ And he laughed. _I didn’t say that, JRR Tolkien did, but that man truly was a genius._

And they’d come back from winter break, and they’d gone to championships, and they’d won. And Jean got to hold the trophy, something he’d fought for. He was surrounded by his teammates, screaming and crying, and he thought a word he hadn’t allowed himself to think for years.

Family.

Jean looks down at the jersey in his hands, and he doesn’t want to let go of it.

He looks at the pictures on his wall, pictures that were printed off his phone by Laila and Jeremy.

There’s team pictures from both years he’s been with the Trojans, the official ones and then the silly ones. In one, Jeremy has him in a headlock, and in the other, Alvarez has leapt onto his shoulders and is in the process of coming crashing down. There’s pictures of Laila and Alvarez, drunk off their asses, the night they were out partying but instead came to Jeremy and Jean’s dorm just to throw pebbles at the window and serenade them, because he and Jeremy weren’t at the party and the girls missed them. There’s pictures of Jean trying to teach French to Laila, the image slightly blurry because Jeremy was laughing too hard behind the camera, because Laila’s accent was truly revolting and Jean couldn’t contain his expression of pain. There’s pictures of the Trojans having a team camping trip, trying to teach Jean how to make s’mores while surreptitiously passing a joint in the background, all of them laughing and falling into each other like they all share the same elbows and jokes and heartbeats.

There’s a picture after a game, of Jeremy looking at Jean, who is standing victorious towards the crowd. And Jeremy’s eyes are soft, and he is looking at Jean like he has hung the stars in the sky.

As if it is not Jeremy who has given Jean the world.

Jean swallows, and puts the jersey down. He thinks, family, and he thinks, hope, and he says, “I’m ready to go.”

Jeremy, who’s been sitting on the couch, hops up with that sunny smile. “Laila’s gonna be so excited. We’re gonna get kicked out of the bar, I swear, but it’s gonna be so worth it.”

And he kisses Jean before they walk out, like it’s easy, like it’s light. Because it is. Because Jean has learned that this safety, this warmth, this boy who tied the sun up with a string and placed it in his chest, are things he gets to keep.

And because Jean might not wear the jersey anymore, but he’ll always be a Trojan.

Jean thinks about how he would have been dead tonight, and how he’s so, so glad that he’s not.

**Author's Note:**

> hope this was enjoyed :) leave a comment if it did, those give me life

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Sunny Skies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24329941) by [Flowerparrish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerparrish/pseuds/Flowerparrish)




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